When working on a page with Dreamweaver, a number of Windows, Pallettes and Inspectors are available. Some give you information about the current cursor position, some give a list of tools for editing the current selection or objects to insert, and others are for editing and page layout.

• The Document Window
  • The WYSIWYG window. This is the main window for editing your page. Just type, format, and insert elements and the HTML is generated for you behind the scenes and on the fly.
  • The top menu bar contains the complete commands and options as well as access to the comprehensive Help Pages.
  • The bottom panel contains:
    • a list of tags surrounding the current cursor position (all selectable),
    • the size of the viewable window, the filesize of the page (including dependent files) and the download time,
    • mini-launcher pallette giving you quick one-click access to the HTML Inspector, the Site Manager, and more.
• The HTML Inspector
  • Nothing is hidden. This window lets you view and edit the HTML source.
  • Tight synchronization between the HTML Inspector and Document Window. Any change in one is immediately visible in the other.
  • Use an external HTML editor. Feel free to set your favorite HTML editor (such as Homesite, Notepad or Emacs) as the default external editor. (Dreamweaver comes bundled with Allaire Homesite.)
  • Hotkeys function in HTML Inspector. The HTML Inspector has no menu toolbar, but many of the hot keys are still active (such as Find... Ctrl-F, Replace... Ctrl-H, Undo Ctrl-Z, and Save Ctrl-S)
• The Object Pallette
  • Insert common page elements such as images, forms, form elements, tables, layers, applets, meta tags, anchors, comments, scripts, and more with one click or click and drag.
  • Extend Dreamweaver with third party objects or make your own.
• The Launcher Pallette
  • One click access to the HTML Inspector, the Site Manager, the Library Pallette, the Styles Pallette, the Behavior Inspector and the Timeline Inspector.
• The Property Inspector
  • Displays all the attibutes for the currently selected object. (For example, when a table is selected, the Property Inspector lets you change the table width, number of columns, size of the border, etc.)
  • Attributes are editable through the Property Inspector for the selected object. (For example, when a table is selected, change the width and border size in the Property Inspector and the table is modified accordingly.)
  • Context sensitive - the attributes in the Property Inspector vary for each type of object selected.
• Additional windows for working with frames, templates and layers

Some of the tools

• Preview in Browser
  • View the current page in a web browser to see what it really looks like for your target audience.
  • Configure a primary and secondary browser (e.g., Netscape 4.51 and IE4.01) and any number of additional browsers. (Primary and secondary are accessible from hot keys F12 and Ctrl-F12.)
• Convert Page to 3.0 Browser Compatible
  • Design you page for 4.0 browsers, then easily create a version for older browsers.
• Check Links
  • Verifies internal links in the current page or the entire site. (Note: Dreamweaver checks only links and references to documents within the site, not external links, though it can generate a list of external links for you.)
• Search and Replace
  • Search current page, set of pages, or entire site
  • Support for regular expressions.
  • Search for a specific tag, specific text inside specific tag, etc. (This is an extremely powerful new feature of Dreamweaver 2.